Separation Anxiety
by Reaper Nanashi
Summary: [Oneshot] Iruka takes in an unusual orphan and finds that the feelings involved in raising it and setting it free aren't all that unlike what he went through with the one that came before it.


**Title:** Separation Anxiety

**Author:** Reaper Nanashi (a.k.a. Lady Shinigami)

**Pairing:** None intended, but I guess it's KakaIru if you tilt your head, cross your eyes, and squint _really_ hard

**Word Count:** 3,107

**Type:** One-shot (Complete)

**Rating:** T (probably K+, but it has birdies dying, so . . .)

**Date Submitted:** 12/10/06

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Theirs.

**Claimer:** The concept is mine, I s'pose.

**Summary:** Iruka finds himself raising another orphan and finds out that the methods and the feelings transcend the barrier of species.

**The Reasoning Behind It:** This was actually inspired by the little brown and white songbirds seen at random throughout the series, but I first got the idea from seeing the ones in the Wave Country Arc when they were all over Naruto while he was sleeping. Am I the only one who thinks they're _really_ cute?

* * *

He called it Naruto.

The tiny avis was plucky and stubborn like its namesake and no, it was not some twisted form of Empty Nest Syndrome that made him take the thing in.

Really.

The little bird's parents had built their nest on his bedroom window's sill and proceeded with all enthusiasm to start a family. It was not exactly something that he wanted to hear at five o'clock in the morning, but he liked birds and simply decided to put up with it. His patience paid off--in days a small collection of eggs had been laid. The parents seemed to realize that there was something that kept him from getting close to them, because after a while they did not fly away when he came to look out the window at them or the village and just went about their business a bit more watchfully than usual, which allowed him to observe them tending busily to the nest and the eggs that it held with such care.

Three of those precious eggs vanished over the span of a week and every morning after he knew because both parents would swarm around the nest in a panic and chirp fretfully. He caught the suspected culprit--a crow--once in the act while both parents were away and swatted the dark bird as hard as he could. Since it was a bad angle he did little more than stun it, but it was enough that the returning parents could dive in together and chase it away. He leaned out the window over the nest, looking for other crows--he had seen them act in groups before--until the parents fluttered before him, chittering aggressively but afraid to attack something his size. He obediently retreated, closed the window, and left them to take care of the rest.

Two weeks later, the mother disappeared. He worried, because she had spent over seventy percent of her time sitting in the nest and keeping the remaining egg warm. For several days the father milled about the nest in what appeared to be depression. Hunger seemed to win, though, and the father left to get food and tend the nest as usual. He did not like the amount of time the egg was not being warmed, so he checked bird books and got out his heating pad, which he set to the appropriate temperature, and then cautiously shifted the nest onto it. If the father noticed this new addition, it was neither considered hostile nor treated with hostility.

A few days after that, Naruto-avis finally hatched. This was not very pleasant because like Naruto, Naruto-avis had both a massive mouth and a massive stomach. Naruto-avis screeched at five-thirty in the morning and did not stop, apparently, until well after dark. Still, he got used to the sound and he came to view it as a sign that he and the father were doing a good job keeping Naruto-avis warm and fed rather than as the childish complaint that it was.

Time passed slowly and he watched as Naruto-avis turned from an ugly pink thing to an ugly pink thing with grey and brown pinfeathers. One morning, while examining Naruto-avis immediately after its father had left, he noticed a dark streak out of the corner of his eye and the shriek of a panicked, pained animal. He looked up and saw a hawk carrying Naruto-avis' father away in its talons, which was undoubtedly what had happened to the mother. Knowing Naruto-avis was as good as dead unless he intervened more directly, he opened the window and used the heating pad as a tray to bring the nest into the apartment to safety.

Fortunately, even though he had never dared touch Naruto-avis, the orphan hatchling and he were familiar with each other because after the crow incident, he had spent the early mornings standing guard over the nest while the parents were out foraging. Naruto-avis did not fear him in the slightest and even had the gall to peck at him when he tried to pick it up. After all, now that there were no parents, touching Naruto-avis would have little consequence as long as he was very gentle with the fragile bird.

Another fortunate thing was the hatchling's diet. Living in a village meant that the bread and bugs and such that it ate were easy to find. He collected jars of each of the four foods he had seen Naruto-avis eat most often, packed up the hatchling, and took it to the Academy with him. It needed to be fed often, naturally, so leaving it in his apartment would kill it. He left its box and the jars in the teachers' lounge, which was practically guaranteed to have someone there at any given point, and wrote an extremely pitiful-sounding note that he taped to the hatchling's box to encourage the other teachers to feed it.

Predictably, Naruto-avis got very fat very quickly.

Ninja may all be trained killers, but they did seek to preserve life when situations like this arose and it seemed that not even the jounin-sensei were totally immune to the now-fledgling's sad plight. Once, he went into the lounge during his lunch break to find Kakashi happily stuffing the chick with as much of each of the jars as it could stand.

"Are you the one feeding it so much?"

"Huh? No, not me. This is only my second time. It's yours, I suppose?"

"Yes."

The jounin flicked the note attached to the box. "Is the story true?"

"Yes."

Kakashi's visible eye softened a little. "Too bad, poor thing."

"Not that I'm upset, but I didn't think you'd be too interested in it."

A shrug was his answer. "When I read the story I was reminded of two of my students. By the way, what's this kid's name?"

"Er . . ." He had not exactly planned on telling anyone that because he always got teased for being so nurturing. As it was his handwriting had been identified and teachers who were not even on the same floor as he was made detours to prod him for being so maternal. It would only get that much worse, he knew, if he revealed that he had named it after his favorite delinquent student. Nervous, he coughed once and scratched the bridge of his nose, his cheeks flushed pink. "Well . . ."

Ever perceptive, Kakashi's visible eye curved in amusement. "I see." He was quiet for a time, carefully cramming a large crumb of bread down Naruto-avis' throat. "But you know . . . this one will want to fly too."

"I know."

"You'll have to let it go or it'll get resentful."

"I know."

"And it'll probably come back, eventually. Not even birds forget where they came from. All you can do is be patient and wait and one day it'll return--maybe with a significant other for you to pass judgement on because you are, after all, the parent."

He was aware the conversation had turned away from birds. "You really think so?"

"There's no need to _think_--I _know_. I'm not sure the bird even realizes this, so you can't expect wonderful changes, but I can hear it in the bird's voice. There's much that I can offer the bird," he mused, gesturing to the four jars sitting around the fledgling's box, "but no matter how much I provide I will never compare to you because _you_ are the bird's special person. It's a place in the bird's heart and mind that I can never fill."

"I'm sorry."

"Why? It's harder to tell, but I believe I have my own bird. If you take yours and I take mine, neither of us will have to be without or be neglectful."

"What about the other bird?"

Kakashi tilted his head, offering a squirming cricket to Naruto-avis, who took it from his fingers eagerly. "That one doesn't need us in the same way the other two do. Neither of us mean to it what we mean to its nestmates. We may be appreciated for what we know and can do for it, but we are not most important to it. To it we are just 'others', not 'the only'."

It was something he thought about as Naruto-avis's plumage developed and the fledgling made many endeavors to kill itself by falling from the highest possible point. Obviously, it was trying to fly, but it was having so little luck it seemed like a series of suicide attempts to him. He finally took it up to the roof, little leather jesses around its skinny legs, and helped it learn to fly from his hand to the roof's edge. He gradually backed away and lengthened the jesses, forcing it to fly farther, and afterward sprinkled food around for it to scavenge for.

Of course, teaching it to fly outdoors made it want to _be_ outdoors and he had to hang a sheet over the door so it would not dart outside whenever he left or entered the apartment or saw to visitors. He was not trying to keep it inside because he did not want to let it go, but because he wanted to be sure its wings were strong enough to carry it.

To teach Naruto-avis to find food in public, he tied its jesses to his wrist and took it out shopping with him. He rearranged his time allowance to deal with the number of people who had to stop him and ask about the little bird perched on his shoulder and to teach it where and how to find things to eat. Naruto-avis was always a very attentive student--Naruto himself had been that focused when he really wanted to learn something--especially when he had it watch other birds as examples of the proper method of food-finding.

He also taught it to fear birds of prey by taking it to Konoha's aviary and holding it just out of the initial striking range of the small and large birds perched there. It learned very quickly, because the birds in the aviary were not fed more than necessary and were thus always hungry enough to try to get a tiny Naruto-avis snack. It was cruel to tease the hunters that way, but he did not plan to let Naruto-avis follow in the tracks of its parents without putting up a decent fight for its life. If the young bird was going to be eaten, which was always a possibility, he wanted the one who caught it to have to _work_ for it.

Summer passed much too quickly and soon Naruto-avis grew more and more restless as autumn came about.

"It's time for graduation," Kakashi reminded him, appearing out of nowhere and settling next to him on the roof's edge. Naruto-avis chirruped a greeting and Kakashi obediently stroked its delicate head with a finger. Oddly, though Kakashi had not been around it or fed it often it had taken a surprisingly deep liking to the jounin and had never failed to know when he was in the area. "Are you prepared?"

"Physically? Yes."

"It won't be easy."

"I know, I know . . . I get attached."

"There's nothing wrong with getting attached. It's having the will to let go."

"_That_ is what I'm not sure I have."

"You have it, you just need to find it."

Naruto-avis had grown used to the weight of the jesses and knew that whenever they were there it was pointless to try to fly away. So it stood in his lap and looked around with the quick motions all birds used, occasionally hopping to Kakashi's lap for attention that the jounin quite willingly provided.

"He's very big."

"She."

"Oh?"

"I finally looked." He scratched the back of his neck. "And she _is_ big. Her parents were several centimeters smaller."

"She was well-fed, had no competition for food and affection, and didn't have to worry about predators. I'm not surprised she grew like a weed."

"I suppose. I just never noticed how big she actually was until the other day."

"She'll be fine, you know."

He frowned down at the active bird. ". . . How can you be so sure?"

"Because you taught her."

He looked at the elite ninja sharply.

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Kakashi chided. "Maybe you haven't thought about it, but it says something that all of the kids who became genin this year were from your class. Not only that, but all of them were nominated for the chuunin exam and all of them made it to the third round preliminaries."

"I didn't _want_ them in the exam," he reminded the jounin, trying not to sound bitter. It had been a while, but he still did not like that he had judged the kids incorrectly.

"You didn't misjudge them," Kakashi assured him thoughtfully, letting him know he had inadvertently spoken aloud. "Not entirely. Instead of judging them with your head you judged with your heart, emotionally rather than practically. They are rather young, yes, and were they not who they are we probably would not have nominated them, but all of them--dead-last prankster included--had something to offer both their team and the chuunin rank." The jounin smiled at the bird hopping back and forth in his lap. "Besides, do you really think Naruto would have let me get away with _not_ allowing him to try?"

No, he had to admit, and had the Hokage agreed with him over Kakashi, Naruto would have been livid. ". . . I still don't think they were ready."

"Individually--the way you know them--no. None of them were ready. Not even Sasuke. But as teams--the way you _didn't_ know them--they were more than ready."

He picked up Naruto-avis and held her against his chest, gazing across the village as he ran a finger down her back. "She's not going to be on a team."

"Not a defined one. But she'll flock and eventually pair off . . . I can't imagine her being alone for long as long as you let her leave when the migration begins."

"It's here now," he admitted. "There are only a few days left."

"She's wild," Kakashi warned. "If you don't let her free, she might suffer from your fear and become bitter."

He sighed heavily. "I know."

"_Iruka-sensei_!" Naruto called from the ground, waving exuberantly.

"See?" Kakashi prodded gently. "If they can, they will always return."

"You look dirty!" he replied, ignoring the jounin.

"Road dust!" Naruto explained. "I just got back!"

"_See_?" Kakashi prodded more firmly. "You're more important to him than his hygiene."

He turned a flat look on the former ANBU. "Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

Kakashi only grinned beneath his mask.

He snorted and turned to Naruto again. "How did it go?"

"Take me for ramen and I'll tell you!" The blond squinted. "A bird!"

He was taken completely by surprise at the boy's speed. When he felt Naruto-avis leave his hand he reached after her worriedly. Naruto did not exactly exhibit restraint on a regular basis and something as frail as a bird would be crushed instantly. "Naruto!"

The blond childishly flopped into a sit between him and Kakashi; the bird settled calmly in his cupped hand. "Birds like me," Naruto murmured very softly, petting the one that was in his hand with a careful finger. Sure enough, Naruto-avis--who had never met Naruto before--had no qualms with being in the boy's hand. "Hey . . ." Naruto trailed, his tone suspicious. "What are these? _Hey_!" The blond rolled Naruto-avis to her back and removed the jesses.

"Naruto!" he cried, clamping his hand over Naruto-avis to prevent her escape. "What are you doing?!"

"Don't do that!" Naruto shouted back. "It's mean!"

"I've been taking care of her all summer!" he snapped. "She's not used to the outdoors!"

"She won't go anywhere!" Naruto told him loudly. "Not until you say she can! She's a good girl--you can trust her!"

He shot a glance at Kakashi to see if the jounin would be smug, but the older ninja did not even look at him, seeming much more interested in what Naruto was saying but not quite willing to speak up himself. He decided to follow the elite ninja's example, to a point. "What are you talking about, Naruto?"

"She trusts you," the blond answered. "You can trust her. She feels she's ready to leave, but . . . she won't go without your permission. She's a good girl."

He removed his hand slowly and allowed Naruto-avis to rise. She fluttered her wings and preened a bit to arrange some out-of-place feathers, then settled once more.

"She won't go until you say good-bye," Naruto finished, eyes locked on the bird. "She'll be back next year, when it gets warmer, and . . . she's going to nest in the drawer of your bedside table . . .?"

There was no way Naruto could have known that she did that--the boy had been gone for the whole summer. It was surely the kyuubi's influence.

He sighed and took Naruto-avis from his old student's hand, holding the young bird at face-level. "Then . . . I guess it _is_ time for good-bye. I have nothing more to teach." Naruto-avis cheeped and fluttered her wings again, rising. "Just . . . be careful out there." She reached out and nibbled on the end of his nose, then turned away and hopped from his hand, joining a flock of birds flying southward and eventually disappearing from sight.

"Ramen now?!" Naruto asked excitedly, as if the last five minutes had not happened.

"Sure," he answered, not feeling as bad as he had expected he would. "Kakashi-sensei?"

"No thanks." Kakashi indicated the street below with a tilt of his head. Sasuke could be seen skulking through the evening crowds. "I have my own bird to take care of."

They watched the jounin go, then Naruto asked, "Does Kakashi-sensei have a bird too?"

Iruka smiled slightly, ruffled the boy's blond hair, and replied, "Something like that."

* * *

**Answers To Questions You Didn't Even Know You Wanted To Ask:**

Yeah, um . . . I'm not sure where this fits in canon. I generally try to avoid writing in such a way that specifies a certain time span, but in this case it's really kind of obvious (or at least it is to me) that there's an inconsistency. Considering that the chuunin exam was mentioned in the past tense, Naruto was covered in 'road dust', and he was with neither Iruka nor Kakashi, it's safe to assume he was with Jiraiya or on a long assignment with a few of the others he went through the chuunin exam with. However, Sasuke's gone shortly after the exam, so . . . I'll just call it a slight AU and be done with it. Lazy, but effective.

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Reviews much appreciated, thank you.

--RN (LS)


End file.
